Siba-Siba Suspects Questioned
MOZAMBIQUE132
NEW BOOK
SIBA-SIBA SUSPECTS QUESTIONED
ALBANO SILVA AQUITTALS
RATITAL & HO IN NEW BANK
ETHANOL
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News reports & clippings no. 132 from Joseph Hanlon
22 July 2008 ()
This is an irregular service of news summaries, mainly based on recent AIM and Noticias reports.
Previous newsletters and other Mozambique material are posted on
To subscribe or unsubscribe, see note at end.
Four files attached:
+ book announcement in English and Portuguese
+ pdf of this mailing, with colour
+ full AIM and Savana articles
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NEW BOOK:
My new book, Há mais bicicletas - mas há desenvolvimento? will be officially published on 6 August in Mozambique. It will soon be in Mozambican bookshops, and can be purchased for 385 Meticais directly from:
Kapicua - Rua Fernão Veloso, 12, 1º - Maputo
Telef 21 41 32 01
The English edition,Do bicycles equal development in Mozambique? will not be published until November, but it can be ordered now at a substantial discount. An order form is attached.
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SUSPECTS
QUESTIONED IN
SIBA-SIBACASE
Investigations into the 2001 murder of Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua moved forward this week with prosecutors questioning four senior figures from the failed Banco Austral.
Under intense IMF pressure, the state-owned People’s Development Bank (BPD) was privatised in 1997; as Banco Austral, it was looted, apparently by people close to the Frelimo leadership, and collapsed in early 2001. The Bank of Mozambique appointed Siba-Siba, a young economist who was head of its banking supervision department, as interim chair, and he tried to collect back loans and prepare the bank for privatisation. On 11 August 2001 he was murdered, and the murder and bank fraud were never investigated.
The case was reopened last year when Augusto Paulino was named Attorney-General. Best known as the judge in the trial that convicted six of the murderers of Carlos Cardoso, he made the Siba-Siba case one of his priorities. He appointed a team headed by a prosecutor, and including officers of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), to deal exclusively with the Siba-Siba murder and the associated looting of Austral.
The partners in the newly privatised bank were Invester and the Malaysian Southern Bank Berhad. Invester, in turn, was owned by Octavio Muthemba, Jamu Hassane and Alvaro Massinga. Mutemba was aformer Industry Minister and was chair of SPI, the Frelimo party holding company. Muthemba became chair of Austral; Hassane was a non-executive director of Austral, and Massinga was a member of the bank’s Supervisory Board
Those interviewed as possible suspects last week, according to local press, included Muthemba, Hassane, and Massinga, as well as Parente Junior, a member of the interim board of directors headed by Siba-Siba.
The history of the bank scandals is on
SWEDEN CUTS AID
Meanwhile, Sweden confirmed that it is cutting the level of its support to the Mozambique government budget because, in the words of Swedish ambassador Torvald Akesson, “We aren’t seeing any serious progress in the fight against corruption.”
Ironically, although Sweden has decreased its budget support in its currency (crown), the rapid devaluation of the dollar (in which Mozambique does its aid accounts) means it appears as if Swedish aid has increased.
Akesson pointed out that “Part of the money used to recapitalize the Austral Bank came from Swedish taxpayers, and so we are concerned that the case has not been cleared up. Schools and hospitals could have been built with the money that was criminally removed from the bank”. But it appears that the forensic audit of the bank, which was demanded and paid for by Sweden and Norway, is finally be used by Attorney General Paulino in his investigations.
SIX ACQUITTED
OF TRYING TO KILL
ALBANO SILVA IN 1999
Six men were acquitted on 1 July of attempting to murder prominent lawyer Albano Silva on 29 November 1999, when Silva was shot at while driving down Av Mao Tse-Tung in Maputo. Both the public prosecutors office and Silva’s lawyers have appealed to the Supreme Court.Judge Dimas Marroa acquitted the men mainly on the grounds that there was that there was no evidence, apart from Silva’s original complaint, that the 1999 attack ever occurred. This was because the police failed to carry out any investigation of the car, which had a bullet hole in the back window and was in their possession for several hours, nor of the scene of the shooting.
The case is linked with the assassination, in November 2000, of Carlos Cardoso and to the $14 million 1996 fraud against the then largest bank, BCM. Silva was BCM’s lawyer and he and Cardoso kept the BCM case alive when corrupt prosecutors blocked it. Three of those acquitted are already in jail for the murder of Cardoso: Nini Satar and his brother Ayob, and Anibal dos Santos Junior (“Anibalzinho”). [more detailed report attached.]
PRAKASH RATILAL
& STANLEY HO
CREATE NEW BANK
A new commercial bank, Moza Banco, opened last month. It is chaired by Prakash Ratilal, a former governor of the Bank of Mozambique. The bank will concentrate on private and industrial banking. A sister company, Moza Capital, will act as an investment bank – but Ratilal stresses it is not a development bank.
Initial capital for the new bank is $15 million, 51%owned by Moçambique Capitais and 49% by 49 per cent is the Macau-based company, Geocapital.Moçambique Capitais is a group of 218 Mozambican businesses and individuals with no dominant shareholder; no member can have more than 10% of the voting rights. Geocapital was set up by the billionaire Stanley Ho as a vehicle for investments in members of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP). Ho made his fortune in the gaming industry, and held a monopoly on gambling in Macau for 35 years. Forbes magazine ranks him as the 104th richest individual in the world. Geocapital also is a major shareholder in Banco Comercial Português (BCP) which in turn controls the Mozambican bankMillenniun BIM.
Moza Capital has already been involved in one major financial operationwith a Chinese bank to import Asian farm machinery to the Zambezi Valley -- the zone which will be a focus of the bank's initial activities.
2 ETHANOL PROJECTS
UNDER WAY
Two large biofuel projects, to produce ethanol from sugar cane, are now under way.
Construction has already started on the larger one, Procana in Massingir district, in the Limpopo Valley. The foreign investor is the London-based Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC), which also has coal licences in Tete and copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Procana will plant 30,000 hectares with sugar caneto produce 120 million litres of ethanol a year. It will cost $510 million, create 7000 jobs, and provide $40 million a year in revenues to the state. it should begin production in 2011.
The second project, approved last week, is for 18,000 hectares of sugar cane in Dombe, a very poor areas in southern Manica. The investor is Principle Capital and the project will cost $280 million. It will create 2650 jobs and pay $57 million in taxes in 2011, rising to $144 million in 2014. Water will come from the Lucite river. Principle predicts that the project will have 50% higher yields than Brazil.
Procana will take water from the Massingir Dam, but this is controversial. Downstream farmers say this will take water away from rice and other food production. The government denies this, and says Massingir's capacity will be expanded to cope. But the dam was under construction at the end of the colonial era and has always been dogged with problems. A rupture occurred in one of the dam’s floodgates on 22 May, causing local flooding, and will cost $15 mn to repair.
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